


Gertrude the Hellhound Service Dog

by SandstoneSunspear



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 13:50:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14238651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SandstoneSunspear/pseuds/SandstoneSunspear
Summary: Alex is stubborn and Gertrude the hellhound has no chill.





	Gertrude the Hellhound Service Dog

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NerdsbianHokie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NerdsbianHokie/gifts).



In hindsight, Alex really should have seen it coming. Waking up from a two week long coma after suffering considerable brain trauma without serious deficits rarely happened. So maybe she had been just a slightly arrogant enough to think that she was one of the rare cases. Could anyone blame her? She was Alex Danvers, slayer of Hellgramites and Kryptonians. She had piloted a Kryptonian shuttle into space, saved Supergirl and, despite having taken a brunt of the Myriad wave, had ended up in better shape than more than 200,000 people.

Except, now she wasn’t. Now, she was trying hard not to vomit in the middle of the sidewalk. A car horn blared in the street. She bit back a whimper as pain lanced through her skull. Migraine. Henderson had warned her that there would be side effects from the damage Myriad caused. Migraines had been one of them. This particular one had come without its usual aura.

_This walk was a bad idea._ She had wanted out of her apartment. She was tired of being cooped up. Fresh air, a little sunlight, some city smog. Just was the doctor ordered. Or not.

Alex took a shuddering breath. To the outside observer, nothing was amiss. She was keen on keeping it that way. She slowly made her way to a nearby alley. She was careful to keep her movements steady. A spiking heart rate was the last thing she needed right now. It was hard going but eventually she made it.

As soon as she crossed the threshold into the alley, Alex let out a breath she didn’t know she was hold. She collapsed, out of sight, in the shadow a dumpster _._ Already things were quieter. The bricks were cool against the back of her skull, providing a modicum of relief from the pain.

_Breathe in._ One slow breath. _Breathe out._ An even slower exhale. The scent of vanilla started to register with her senses. Her stomach turned at the smell. At any other time, she would have welcomed it. Right now, though, it was a reminder and warning that she didn’t have long before things got much worse. Still, better late than never, she supposed.

Alex curled in on herself and closed her eyes. A large black, smokey mass went unnoticed as she focused on her breathing. If she had been paying attention, she would have noticed that it looked like a very large dog.

The mass looked over the curled human curiously. It sniffed the air. It could smell that something was wrong with the human in front of it. The human’s eyes were squeezed shut. Their breathing was laboured. It tilted its head. It had seen something like this before… Ah! The human was experiencing pain. But why? A crash and sharp yowl had it baring its teeth and snarling in the direction of the noise. A flinch and a quiet whimper from the human drew its attention back to them. So the noise was making the human hurt.

It slowly approached the human. They took no notice. It dug it’s paws into the asphalt and focused on the human in front of it. Then, it engulfed them.

Alex felt the air shift. Everything grew quiet. She dared to open her eyes. She was surprised to see that the world had grown just a shade darker, like someone had dropped a dark filter over the sun. It was a relief to her sensitive eyes. She slowly pushed herself to her feet.

“Ugh…” She swayed for a moment and had to brace her hand against the wall. Her brow furrowed. It felt like something was helping to keep her standing.

_I have to get home._ She doubted that whatever it was that was going on that was making things easier would last. Home had her medication. Home she could keep as quiet and as dark for as long as she needed to.

Alex made her way out of the alley way. She fully expected to have squint and cover her eyes as soon as she was out. But to her surprise, everything remain muted. It filled her with a sense of relief she hadn’t felt in ages. She turned right and headed towards her flat.

People paid her no attention as she shuffled down the sidewalk. If anything, they seemed to be avoiding her. Alex noticed how they would either veer to the far left or far right. It was like something was guiding them away from her. It was weird, but she wasn’t going to complain. It meant one less thing to worry about. Still, she couldn’t help but feel as though something was dogging her footsteps.  

-

Alex readied her keys. She tensed, prepared for the sound of her key scraping against the tumblers of the lock. Whenever she had a migraine, it was one of the worst sounds and it never failed to make her flinch. This time, though, the sound never reached her ears. The key slid in smoother than it ever had. She would’ve raised her eyebrows in surprise, if her head hadn’t felt like an overripe melon waiting to explode. She pushed the door open and stepped inside.

The moment she did, there was a rush of wind. She brought her arm up to cover her face. For one brief moment, she thought that Kara had flown into her apartment. When she lowered her arm, she was greeted by a very different sight. A dog the size of a small horse stood in front of her. Or at least, she thought it was a dog. Except, dogs weren’t usually made of oil, smoke, fire, and bones, were they?

Alex blinked. _What the fuck._ The last time she checked, migraines didn’t cause visual hallucinations. She rubbed her eyes. Yup, the dog was still there.

“Did…are you the reason everything got quiet?” she asked.

A wide canine grin stretched its way across its face in response.

_Huh._ Alex was too tired to come up with a verbal response to that. A giant canine that looked like it came straight from hell was the least of her worries. Right now, all she wanted to do was pop an ibuprofen or two, curl up under the covers, and sleep until the pain had passed.

“Well, thank you,” she said awkwardly. “Uh… you can go now?” It came off more as a question than she would have liked it to, but honestly, she had no idea what else to say.

The dog didn’t appear to agree with Alex’s suggestion. If she didn’t know any better, she’d say that it was frowning. It slowly plodded up to her and pushed its nose into her stomach. She flinched involuntarily at the sensation. It took a few more nudges before she realised that it was trying to get her to move to her bed.

“Alright, alright, I’m going,” she said. “Sheesh.” _What a weird dog._

It huffed behind as she slowly made to her bed. This human was out of her mind if she thought it was going to leave her alone in her current state. It was obvious that she required assistance.

Alex reached for the bottle of pills by her bedside. Or at least, she tried to. Not for the first time, did she curse the impact migraines had on her motor skills. Before she could reach down and grab it, the dog had already grabbed the bottle between its jaws. There was a pause, then a crunch as it split the bottle open. A warm, bony nose met her open hand. Two pills appeared seconds later.

“Thanks.” Alex tossed them back and dry swallowed them. She had to take a few short breaths to keep her stomach from rebelling at the action. Once she was sure she wasn’t going to throw the medication back up, she got under the covers and curled up into a small ball. Her eyes started to slip shut, only to fly back open when the dog curled itself around her.

“Uh…”

She received a huff in response that fluffed her hair. Things grew dimmer and quieter. _Ah._ Well, who was shift to look a gift dog in the mouth? Besides, she could better assess the situation in the morning. Right now, she was exhausted and in pain, and the medication was finally starting to kick in.

“You know…” she drawled out. “I can’t just keep calling you dog. You have a name?”

Another huff.

Alex hummed. “How about Tacitus?” A disgusted scoff.

“Asta?” A pause, then a noncommittal huff.

“Gertrude?” Another pause. Then, Alex could make out the sounds of blankets being ruffled as a tail went wild. “Gertrude it is then…”

Alex’s eyes slipped shut. Gertrude looked down at the human underneath her in alarm. It quickly faded when she realised that her human had finally fallen asleep. She shuffled around, careful not to disturb her charge, and let her own eyes close.

-

“Holy shit, Alex!”

Alex sat up abruptly at the cry. Her hand instinctively went for her weapon before her location finally registered. She was at home. She blinked. Gertrude was still on the bed. She glanced in the direction of the noise to see Kara standing by the window She looked alarmed.

“Kara? What are you doing here?”

Kara held up a bag of donuts from Noonan’s. “I brought breakfast.” She pointed at Gertrude. “What is _that?”_

Alex looked at Gertrude, who looked right back at her. A long tongue made of fire extended from her mouth as her jaws stretched with a large yawn. Half a second later, a thin tail wreathed in smoke began wagging happily.

Alex glanced back to Kara. “This is Gertrude, my…service dog?”

Kara just stared.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to stop by on tumblr @sandstoneunspear to say hi or toss some ideas my way. If you're feeling generous and/or like what you've read, consider buying me a coffee at https://ko-fi.com/sandspears
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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